Sunday, June 13, 2010

Workers stand by a fence during a strike at a Honda Motor vehicle factory.

Strikes at Honda's transmission and exhaust system plants in the southernChinese city of Foshan that won significant pay rises, and ongoingindustrial action by Honda Lock workers in Zhongshan, have been followedby strike action in other parts of the country. Workers are demandinghigher wages, better conditions, and secure jobs in cities includingShanghai, Zhuhai and Xian, in both foreign- and state-owned enterprises.

The Honda Lock strike, involving 1,700 workers, appears to beintensifying, with employees yesterday morning rallying outside thefactory before staging a short protest march, in defiance of black-cladriot police. Police left without clashing with workers. Honda neverthelessthreatened workers over loud speakers that they would face "seriousconsequences" unless they accepted the offered 100 yuan pay rise. ManyHonda Lock workers currently earn the local official minimum wage of 900yuan a month, $US132, for a 42-hour week. They are demanding an additional800 yuan a month, 89 percent more.

On Thursday, the South China Morning Post reported, workers chanted at afactory fence: "Are we settling for 200? No way. 300? No! How about 400?No way." A 32-year-old female worker from Hunan said: "We want the samewage level as Nanhai Honda workers. Not a single cent less." A 33-year-oldworker from Guangxi told the newspaper why she had joined the strike: "Iam in the paint spraying unit," she explained. "The air quality isterrible inside. I've been sniffing toxic fumes for four years and onlyearn 1,800 yuan a month. The wage level is too low."

The workers are not provided with dormitories, and must live in nearbyapartments that typically cost $44 a month [300 yuan] for rent andutilities.

Honda Lock workers have also been provoked by oppressive workplaceconditions. They are forced to stand for eight hours, with pregnant womenallowed to sit only in their last trimester. Workers are not allowed tospeak to one another, have to obtain passes before going to toilet, andare strictly monitored by management even when getting a drink of water.The strike was triggered on Wednesday morning when a company securityguard denied a female worker entry to the plant because her ID card wassupposedly improperly attached to her shirt, and then forced her to theground after she protested.

Honda Lock employees have elected a council of shop stewards to negotiatewith management. The workers' organisation was formed in opposition to thestate-controlled All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), and somehave called for a new independent union. "The [ACFTU] trade union is notrepresenting our views," one unnamed striker told the New York Times, "wewant our own union that will represent us."

These developments represent a direct challenge to the Chinese CommunistParty's ban on any independent organisation of the working class, whichhas been in place since Mao's peasant armies came to power in 1949.

The Financial Times yesterday reported: "At plants where the strikes arecontinuing, plain-clothes surveillance of workers and reporters isincreasing." The full extent of the strike wave across China remainsunclear, as some have reportedly been settled or suppressed shortly afteremerging, while other struggles have been deliberately ignored by thestate media.

In Zhuhai, Guangdong province, nearly a thousand workers in a Flextronicsplant struck on Thursday, demanding a pay rise to bring them in line withthe 2,000 yuan received by Foxconn workers. US-owned Flextronics is theworld's second largest outsourcing electronics manufacturer, afterFoxconn, and employs 30,000 workers at its Zhuhai plant. Workerscomplained that they are subject to a brutal production regime similar toFoxconn, but receive just 965 yuan a month. This wage is similar to thatat Foxconn before a series of suicides forced the company to offer payrises.

In Shanghai, 2,000 workers at TPO Displays, partly owned by electronicsgiant Foxconn, went on strike on Wednesday, protesting against rumouredcompany plans to relocate the plant to Nanjing. The workers produce LCDscreens for mobile phones and GPS devices.

In Xian, Shaanxi province, Japan's Brother Industries' two sewing machineplants were shut down by a strike of 900 workers that began on June 3 indemand of higher pay and better conditions. The ACFTU head of thefactories claimed that workers had agreed to return to work last Thursday,after the Japanese management made concessions.

In Jiujiang, Jiangxi province, 8,000 workers protested at aTaiwanese-owned sport equipment factory. Last Saturday, a female workernot wearing her ID card was blocked from entering the plant, leading to anargument in which security guards assaulted another worker who tried tomediate. After rumours circulated that he died had from his injuries, thepent-up anger at the plant erupted on Monday and workers smashed thesecurity department, factory gate, equipment and vehicles. The strikeended when 200 police officers arrived and arrested the security guardswho had attacked the worker. The police remained to ensure that productionresumed.

In Hubei province's Suizhou city, 400 workers staged an anti-privatisationprotest in front of their state-owned textile factory. The plant had beensold to a private business owner who was unable to revive production, andinstead plundered workers' pensions and other benefits. The localauthority bought back the enterprise, only to sell it to real estatedevelopers. Workers began protesting the sale last month and the issueremains unresolved.

The international financial press continues to watch the emerging workers'movement in China with great unease.

A comment by Tom Mitchell in Wednesday's Financial Times warned thatdisruption to global supply chains caused by industrial action wouldlikely prove just as damaging to investors as wage concessions. "Thecomplexity of the global supply chain may be something to marvel at—but itcomes at a price," he noted. "The inherent fragility of a farflung systemwith millions of interactions can lead quickly to negative widespreadrepercussions for the companies whose futures are bound up with it.

BusinessWeek commented on Thursday that the young generation of Chineseworkers "are far more aware of world developments than their parents",thanks to widespread Internet and mobile phone use. Frank Jaeger, a Germanfactory owner in Dongguan complained: "Every worker is a labour lawyer byhimself. They know their rights better than my HR officer." HarleySeyedin, president of American Chamber of Commerce of South China, said:"There are Internet cafes everywhere, so the workers can get information.They are starting to ask for more. The days of cheap labour are gone."

Hong Kong's Economic Daily yesterday warned that strikes may "spreadacross the country". It stated that while some large corporations couldafford wage concessions, there were limits. Transnational firms could pullout of China if higher profit margins were on offer elsewhere, while manysmall and medium companies could collapse if forced to issue 20-30 percentwage rises. The Economic Daily also explained that although it wasimportant for Beijing to encourage domestic consumption, granting higherwages carried huge risks: "Given the current sharp social tensions inChina, strikes may mix up with other social grievances, evolving intodemonstrations and even unrest against the [existing] society and even thegovernment, shaking social stability."

The CCP is well aware of the dangers posed by the growing strike wave.Currently it is treading a fine line, hesitating to unleash repressivemeasures against the striking factory workers for fear of triggering abroader oppositional movement, while at the same time preparing forviolent confrontation to suppress the working class, as it has done in thepast.